Linux Top 3: Linux 3.12, Linux 4.0, Fedora 20 Delayed

1) Linux 3.12

The Linux 3.12 kernel is now out and with comes a host of new features and capabilities for Linux. As usual, the new kernel includes lots of filesystem and driver updates that will improve Linux.

Btrfs now benefits from offline de-duplication support

"Userspace passes in an array of file, offset pairs along with a length argument, the code commitexplains. "The ioctl will then (for each dedupe) do a byte-by-byte comparison of the user data before deduping the extent. Status and number of bytes deduped are returned for each operation."

2) Linux 4.0

With the 3.12 kernel release, Linux creator Linus Torvalds is now already starting to feel a bit jumpy about the rising number. Remember that the 2.6.x series hit 2.6.39 at which point Torvalds changed the number to 3.0 for the 2.6.40 release.

While Linux kernel releases now are time based, rather than feature focussed, Torvalds would like the 4.0 release to actually be focussed on bug fixes and stability.

"If we have enough heads-up that people *know* that for one release (and companies/managers know that too) the only patches that get accepted are the kind that fix bugs, maybe people really would have sufficient attention span that it could work," Torvalds wrote .

The cutover to Linux 4.0 isn't likely to occur until the Linux 3.20 timeframe, which is roughly a year way.

3) Fedora 20 Delayed

The upcoming Fedora 20 Linux distribution codenamed 'Heisenbug' is being delayed. Ironically a Heisenbugis a type of intermittent software bug that is difficult to resolve.

The Fedora 20 Beta release is being pushed back by a week due to 'unresolved blocker bugs'. The new Fedora 20 General availability date is now Dec 10.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at LinuxPlanet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist

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